A Bird’s-Eye View of the Past: Digital History,Distant Reading and Sport History

Advances in computer technologies have made it easier than ever before for historians to access a wealth of sources made available in the digital era. This article investigates one way that historians have engaged with the challenges and opportunities of this ‘infinite archive’: distant reading. We define distant reading as an umbrella term that embraces many practices, including data mining, aggregation, text analysis, and the visual representations of these practices. This paper investigates the utility of distant reading as a research tool via three newspaper case studies concerning Muhammad Ali, women’s surfing in Australia, and homophobic language and Australian sport. The research reveals that the usefulness, effectiveness, and success of distant reading is dependent on numerous factors. While valuable in many instances, distant reading is rarely an end in itself and can be most powerful when paired with the traditional historical skills of close reading.     

Musculoskeletal Radiology Teaching at a UK Medical School: Do We Need to Improve?

The United Kingdom is currently facing crisis due to a shortage of radiology consultants despite ever-increasing demand for medical imaging. The specifics of how best to teach radiology has generated increasing interest. This study aims to determine whether musculoskeletal (MSK) radiology teaching at the University of Nottingham (UoN) Medical School is perceived to be satisfactory by medical students, Foundation-Year doctors, and senior medical professionals in preparing students for the demands working as Foundation-Year doctors. Questionnaires were distributed to all medical students and Foundation-Year doctors that graduated from UoN (n = 307). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with consultants and teaching staff (n = 13). Forty-nine percent of preclinical medical students, 43% of clinical students and 27% of Foundation-Year doctors thought MSK radiology teaching was not sufficient in preparing them for the radiology challenges Foundation-Year doctors' face. This difference was statistically significant (P < 0.001). The consensus from senior medical professionals was that MSK Radiology teaching is currently adequate and producing competent students. Interestingly, only 5% of students were considering a career in radiology compared to 34% of Foundation-Year doctors. Overall, there seems to be concern among students regarding MSK radiology teaching and students have a lack of confidence with MSK radiology. Foundation-Year doctors and senior medical professionals do not share this view. This may be due to medical students' lack of clarity on what is required of them. Formal documentation of set learning objectives for MSK radiology throughout the curriculum may address this.     

A faculty–librarian collaboration for developing information literacy skills among preservice teachers

Preservice teachers enrolled in the first portion of an undergraduate education program at the Florida State University were assigned to develop case studies based on their experience working in local elementary schools. The case studies were to include research from the scholarly literature of the field using a rubric developed by the instructor for evaluating sources. After inadequate results were recorded from the initial semester's projects, the course instructor paired with a liaison librarian to provide a workshop to improve the use of scholarly resources in the following semester's class. This article reports on a citation analysis of student bibliographies from the two classes, finding that the number of scholarly resources cited increased significantly when the librarian's presentation accompanied the use of the instructor's rubric. The results affirm earlier research that a combination of library instruction and clear faculty-established guidelines and requirements for the use of scholarly resources results in increased quality of student research.     

Teacher Perception of Play: In Leaving No Child Behind Are Teachers Leaving Childhood Behind?

The value of play seems inherent to the understandings of early childhood, but teachers of young children in the elementary grades have rarely been studied as to their attitudes toward play (Wing, 1995). The research explored teacher perceptions of the role of play in learning and the implications for practice. The study involved 4 first-grade teachers from 2 diverse socioeconomic school settings. The pheno-menological work followed a qualitative format of interview with an analysis of related documents. Although the instructors held a common value for play in the development of young learners, they did not make a corresponding provisions for such in their classrooms with the exception of 1 participant. Varying perceptions of the definition and place of play resulted in differing levels of willingness to include child-initiated play that were spawned within the educational contexts. These perceptions led to the inductively realized outcome variables of instructional goals, student products, and classroom climate. Dewey's (1916) view of work and play, Bredekamp and Rosegrant's (1995) Continuum of Teacher Behaviors, and Ajzen and Fishbein's (1980) theory of reasoned action provided frameworks for deductively understanding the teachers' instructional decisions.     

What Teachers Believe about Teaching Composite Classes

Teacher knowledge of how to teach a composite class (a class of two or more grades) was studied by observing eight outstanding teachers at work and by eliciting their knowledge of the reasons for their own behaviour. From observation and interviews, 125 incidents, each with an explanatory teacher comment, were collected. A maxim was educed for each and the maxims were classified under six main headings: (1) management, (2) personalisation, (3) class climate, (4) teaching strategies, (5) curriculum, and (6) teaching contexts. The validity of these maxims was assessed by a group of 21 outstanding composite‐class teachers, including seven of the original eight, who also commented on the maxims’ usefulness for in‐service professional development. The majority of outstanding teachers agreed with almost all the maxims and they felt the maxims would be valuable for preservice and in‐service teacher education. This paper discusses the importance of teachers having knowledge and skills in the areas of personalisation of instruction, classroom management and creating a positive class climate. Also discussed are the implications of disagreements amongst teachers over the validity of some of the maxims and the issue of the extent to which composite‐class teaching requires different skills and knowledge from ordinary class teaching.